


Secrets Lost and Lives Saved

by Onehelluvapilot



Series: Febuwhump [17]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: (lance is unconscious the entire fic but damnit i'm still tagging him), Blood and Injury, Extended Scene, Gen, Graphic Description of Wounds, Hurt Lancelot (Merlin), Leon Finds Out About Merlin's Magic (Merlin), Major Character Injury, Protective Leon (Merlin), Supportive Leon (Merlin), but you don't need to have read that one to understand this, physician Merlin, related to my other work Bloody Hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29144214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onehelluvapilot/pseuds/Onehelluvapilot
Summary: Leon and Merlin work together to try to save Lancelot, whose been badly injured by a crossbow. What will happen when Merlin has to use magic to save his life?
Relationships: Leon & Merlin (Merlin)
Series: Febuwhump [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134998
Comments: 8
Kudos: 59





	Secrets Lost and Lives Saved

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by LiGi, all remaining mistakes are mine

Merlin was shaking. He looked up at Leon, who knelt on the other side of Lancelot’s unconscious form. The knight had passed out soon after taking the grievous wound to the stomach. The crossbow bolt was still lodged within him, just a few inches to the left of his navel and buried deep. His chainmail, now bunched up higher on his chest, was probably the only reason it hadn’t gone straight through him. Fabric pressed around the bolt was already stained red with blood, as it had been half an hour since the wound was taken. They hadn’t pulled it out yet, since to do so would make it bleed far worse, and they had to be ready to tend to the wound before they dared to touch it. Leon, who had the most experience treating battlefield injuries out of the knights, had kept pressure around the wound and attempted to keep Lancelot calm when he periodically drifted back to consciousness, as the others set up a tent, gathered wood for a fire, and boiled water and collected herbs at Merlin’s instruction. The physician’s assistant had not once faltered in his instructions, until this moment, when it was time for him to actually begin the surgery.

“I can’t do this,” he whispered. “I’m not Gaius, I don’t know the position of each of his organs or what the bolt may have hit, the risk of complications is too great, I’m not good enough-”

“Merlin,” Leon said firmly, to interrupt his rambling. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you know how to stop bleeding, you know how to stitch a wound, how to prevent infection, and how to monitor a patient and care for them during recovery. And if something vital was hit… you know how to make him more comfortable until he passes. I know if he was awake, Lancelot would tell you that you absolutely can do this. It isn’t hard to see that he trusts you more than anyone.”

The servant swallowed, but seemed at least slightly bolstered by the words. He checked that he had everything he needed within reach: a needle, which was already threaded, clean water, bandages, honey… He pulled the blanket up over Lancelot’s legs so he would hopefully not get too chilled during the procedure, and began. The bolt came out surprisingly easily, with a terrible squelching noise, and Leon quickly pressed the bandages down on it to stop the bleeding. Evidently, it must’ve hurt, because Lancelot tossed his head to the side and groaned.

“It’s okay, shhh,” Leon soothed, laying his clean left hand over his forehead. Fortunately, Lancelot didn’t fully regain consciousness, and after holding his breath for a minute to wait, Merlin got back to work. The bleeding wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but the wound was deep, and there was also a circle of dark bruising around the injury itself. The hurt knight was going to be a world of pain when he did wake up. If he woke up.

Merlin tried to force from his mind the thought that despite his best efforts, his friend still might not make it and began the careful work of cleaning the wound. Lancelot was disturbingly still under his hands as he washed away the blood, although he knew the process was normally agonizing. The physician in training had to keep pausing his work to take the knight’s pulse or make sure he was still breathing.

“You gotta be okay,” he muttered under his breath. On instinct, he added a prayer in the tongue of the Old Religion, which also served as a fortifying spell. He had completely forgotten that Leon was in the tent with him, since he was so focused and because normally when his skills as a healer were called upon, he was either alone with an unconscious patient or had only Gaius or Lancelot himself by his side. In a panic, he looked up at the First Knight. Merlin had never heard him express any sentiments against magic directly, but then, he didn’t really need to; the man had grown up in Camelot and served it as a knight for almost a decade by now, of course he hated magic! Maybe he hadn’t heard though… He wasn’t looking at Merlin with horror or hatred in his eyes. In fact, he wasn’t looking at Merlin at all, but instead down at Lancelot’s face where his head rested on Elyan’s folded cloak. He held the injured knight’s hand and stroked his thumb calmly over the back of it, even though he wouldn’t be able to feel it.

“Is there a particular reason you’ve stopped working?” he asked after a minute, finally looking over at Merlin. “This is a bit of a time-sensitive manner.”

“Right, of course, sorry,” the warlock quickly agreed. Taking a steadying breath, he picked up the needle and thread. With how deep the crossbow bolt had penetrated, he would have to stitch the different layers of muscle back together, not just the skin at the surface. Lancelot’s insides all looked about the same, which he desperately hoped meant that it was only muscle that was damaged and not any organs, but looking inside his best friend still threatened to make him sick. Without thinking, another prayer fell from his lips. Leon had to have heard that one, but he said nothing. The warlock paused again, waiting for the shouting, the accusations, to be cast from the tent, but none came.

“Lancelot’s counting on you, Merlin,” Leon said instead. “Keep going.”

He didn’t know how to take that except as tacit acceptance with his use of spells, at least in this situation. Merlin knew the bond between knights was strong; strong enough, apparently, to excuse his magic. Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised. Arthur had agreed on the use of magic to try to save his father, and even Uther himself had asked Gaius to do whatever was necessary to try to save Morgana when she was injured. Love was stronger than hate, every time.

He made the first line of stitches, closing the bottom of the wound. They had a small amount of clear alcohol, which Gaius thought helped to prevent infection somehow, which he poured over the injury before continuing. He prayed he wasn’t making things worse somehow, and that Lancelot wouldn’t take ill. In his current badly weakened state, he wouldn’t survive that. With a worried glance up at Leon for just a second, Merlin whispered a cleaning spell and his eyes flashed gold. The knight staunchly ignored it, as he did with the other spells the emboldened warlock used to try to keep their mutual friend alive. It was slow work, and he was exhausted by the time the wound was finally closed to its whole depth. He smeared honey over it and Leon helped him sit Lancelot up very carefully so they could bandage his torso.

“Why did you keep touching his forearm?” the First Knight asked after they had laid him back down and pulled the blanket up over him. That was his major question? Merlin had assumed it would be… it would be…

“You can feel his blood pumping there,” Merlin explained, showing on Lancelot’s left hand how to hold his fingers to the inside of the wrist while Leon copied him on the right. “If it’s a steady beat, like your own heart if you can feel that, then he’s doing well. If it’s slower or unsteady then we have a problem.”

“If that happens, is there something you can do about it?”

“There’s some things I can try,” he said.

“Okay. I’ll call you back in then if he’s in trouble, but you should go get cleaned up and take a break,” the knight instructed. Merlin objected some, but eventually allowed himself to be pushed from the tent to go and wash his bloody hands.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments/Kudos are always appreciated


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